


X=(cup)cakes

by CurryDraws



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Brotherly Love, Cuddling, Cuddly Tony, Drunk Tony, MIT snippets, Roberta Rhodes cares for everyone, Sleeping Together, Tony is awkward with physical contact, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 05:29:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14489832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurryDraws/pseuds/CurryDraws
Summary: It's the end of Tony's first semester at MIT.He is drinking and James Rhodes decides that staying somewhere else during semester break might be a better idea.





	X=(cup)cakes

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a small piece about Rhodey's Mom but it kinda ran away from me.  
> Now you have a cuddly piece of MIT times.
> 
> (And I'm indulging my own head canon that Rhodey's Mom is from Mexico.)
> 
> Inspiration posts for this at the bottom.

Roberta had always had a soft spot for her son’s friends for it was far and few in between if James ever brought one of them home.

She was proud of her son getting into MIT even if it meant seeing him less and less before he finally joined the army, following his father’s footsteps.

           

Roberta was interrupted by the telephone while cooking lunch.

“Hello?”

“Hey Mom,” said her son’s voice through the phone.

“James! It’s been a while since your last call.” She smiled. “How are you?”

“I’m okay but… Uhm… I wondered if I could drop by with a friend for a few days during semester break? He doesn’t seem to take the stress very well with exams and the other stuff and his parents are out of the country for a while and I don’t really want to leave him here at MIT with partying students and lots of alcohol during break.”

Roberta was able to hear the nervousness in her son’s voice, combined with worry for his friend.

“You know that I don’t have a problem with you bringing friends over, honey.”

In the background she caught the sound of rustling blankets and murmuring.

“Rhodey…?” a sleepy voice asked.

“It’s nothing, Tony. Go back to sleep.”

“M’kay.”

The blankets rustled again and James sighed.

“Thanks Mom.”

 

James Rhodes hung up the telephone and turned around to look at Tony who was buried under a mountain of blankets. He could not comprehend why the younger one thought it was a great idea to try and get rid of his stress levels by getting wasted at a party. For god’s sake, the boy was 15!

Not that his mother needed to know that.

He still had last night’s images in his head:

_Tony lying in the corner, looking half dead and being totally wasted._

He shook his head. He would ensure that this would not ever happen again.

Eventually he sat down next to his friend who took up all of his blankets and babbled the Fibonacci sequence in his sleep. Sighing he ran his fingers through Tony’s curly hair.

Never would he have thought that he was going to babysit a 15-year old college student.

 

James found Tony drunk out of his mind again a week later, only this time it was in their now shared dormitory. He was sitting on the floor, swaddled in four blankets, stuffing donuts down his throat while designing something on a spare piece of paper.

“Tony…?”

Said teenager turned around so fast that he trapped himself in his blankets and fell face first to the floor. He lifted his head from the ground and grinned at his companion, eyes gleaming with delight.

“Rhodey!”

James eyes drifted to the papers Tony had been scribbling on. There were equations, numbers that did not make sense to him and more calculations. Then he saw the sketches.

“Are you designing an airplane? While you’re drunk?!”

“’M n’t dr’nk”, Tony slurred, his moment of coherence seemingly over.

“Of course, squirt, of course.”

Rolling his eyes James heaved up the blanket cocoon.

“Alright, time to sleep, squirt.”

“Dunwanna.”

“I don’t see you having a say in this.”

After flopping the Tony-blanket-cocoon down on Tony’s bed James laid down next to it. He closed his eyes. The bar he jobbed at had been loud as always. Silence was great. Silence was-

“Rhodey~,” the blanket cocoon next to him whined and started wiggling around.

-not available as long as Tony was drunk and awake.

Groaning, James turned over to his side and embraced Tony and all his blankets in a desperate attempt to stop him from wiggling around even more. It worked.

“Shut it, Tones. _I’m_ gonna sleep and _you’re_ gonna sleep. Understood?”

No answer. Great, now he was finally able to get his much needed sleep before the last exam tomorrow.

Wasn’t silence a nice thing?

 

“Is there a reason there are aircraft plans lying in front of the couch?” Tony asked the next day during lunch.

“Not particularly. You left it there last night.” James shrugged.

“ _I_ left it there? I don’t even remember getting to bed last night,” the teenager mused.

“I can see the headlines already,” James laughed, “ _Tony Stark designed new world-best aircraft while being drunk and doesn’t even remember it_.”

“World best aircraft? Please. Did you even look at the calculations? There is one solved **x=(cup)cakes**!”

 

“Mom? We’re home!” James called as he opened the door to his mother’s house, shoving a reluctant Tony over the threshold.

Roberta stepped out of the kitchen with a spatula in her hand.

“James, mi querido!” She hugged him firmly before doing the same to Tony who endured it dumbfounded.

“And you have to be Tony.” She held him at his shoulders and looked at him from top to bottom. “You look thin, dear.”

Tony stared at her. “Wha-?”

“Just leave your bags next to the stairs, boys, and come to the kitchen. Dinner is nearly finished.” With that she turned and entered the kitchen again.

Next to Tony James laughed quietly.

“Come on, Tones, you heard the Lady of the house.”

 

Since the night James called his mother Tony seemed to start to understand that ‘Rhodey’ was perfectly fine with him being cuddly. So even if James’ mother prepared the guestroom, night time found Tony leaning into James who had his arm around him on the older one’s bed.

“Your Mom’s great, you know that?” he whispered into the comfortable silence that surrounded them.

“You think so? Most of the time it’s more embarrassing than nice.” James looked down to Tony’s head on his shoulder.

“Yeah. She’s nice and warm and bubbly… And her cupcakes are great.”

He yawned and buried himself a bit more in James' side.

Huffing with silent laughter the older one pulled his friend down to a lying position and covered them both with the blanket.

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

 

Later that night, Roberta quietly opened the door to her son’s bedroom to check on him. Seeing Tony and James hugging each other in their sleep, she left and returned with a camera.

It seemed that her son took up a younger brother. And damn, were these boys cute together.

She took a photo and tiptoed out of the room. This picture was going to end up on the mantle of the fireplace before the boys left for MIT again.

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language, so please leave constructive criticism if you notice something wrong. I'd love to improve my writing.
> 
>  
> 
> https://pin.it/rwzo3fn4nzd7he  
> https://pin.it/mwvfzz7n7eofr4  
> https://pin.it/ttla2z5ar5mduv


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